“The struggle of rich and poor?” said Delorme.  “Precisely.  That’s what all you fellows who go and preach revolution to dockers are after.  And what on earth would the world do without wealth?  Wealth is only materialized intelligence!  What’s wrong with it?”

“Only that we’re dying of it.”

The young man paused.  He sat silently smoking, his eyes—­unseeing—­fixed upon the house.  Lucy Manisty looked at him with sympathy.

“You mean,” she said, “that no one who has the power to be rich has now ever the courage to be poor?”

He nodded, and turning to her he continued in a lower voice:  “And think what’s lost!  Are we all to be smothered in this paraphernalia of servants, and motor cars and gluttonous living?  There’s scarcely a man—­for instance—­among my friends who’ll dare to marry!  Hundreds used to be enough—­now they must have thousands—­or say their wives must.  And they’ll sell their souls to get the thousands.  Who’s the better—­who’s the happier for it in the end?  We have left ourselves nothing to love with—­nothing to be happy with.  What does natural beauty—­or human feeling—­matter to the men who spend their days speculating in the City?  I know ’em.  I have watched some of them for years.  It’s a thirst that destroys a man.  To want to be rich is bad enough—­to want to be rich quick is death and damnation ...”

There was silence again, till suddenly Boden addressed Colonel Barton, who was sitting opposite half asleep in the sun.

“I say, what’s the name of a village, about two miles from here, I walked through while you were all at church this morning?—­the most God-forsaken place I ever saw!—­a horrible, insanitary hole!”

“Mainstairs!” said Barton, promptly, waking up.  “That’s the only village hereabout that fits the description.  But Melrose owns two or three of them.”

“The man that owns that village ought to be hung,” said Boden with quiet ferocity.  “In any decent state of society he would be hung.”

Barton shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m on the sanitary authority.  We’ve summoned him till we’re tired, to put those cottages in repair.  No use.  Now, we’ve told him that we shall repair them ourselves and send in the bill to him.  That’s stirred him, and he’s immediately given everybody notice to quit—­says he’ll close the whole village.  But the people won’t go.  There are no other cottages for miles—­they’ve taken to stoning our inspectors.”

“And you think our land system’s going to last on these terms?” said Boden, his eyes flaming.

The little Tory opposite drew himself up.

“It’s not the system—­it’s the man.”

“The system’s judged—­that permits the man.”

“Melrose is unique,” said Barton, hotly; “we are a model county, but for the Melrose estate.”

“But the exception is damning!  It compromises you all.  That such a place as Mainstairs should be possible—­that’s the point!”